1. Field Of The Invention
An edible product containing discrete particulate cookies in situ or in a matrix.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Machines and machinery for forming dough, and making very small or tiny cookies, known as cookie bits, are shown and described in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,574; my Canadian Pat. No. 1,134,677, and in my aforementioned U.S. Pat. Application, Ser. No. 228,292 filed Jan. 26, 1981 and now allowed. The disclosures of these teachings are incorporated herein by reference.
The food industry and especially the ice cream industry was desirous of incorporating a cake product into food substances and ice cream, but the prior art cake products would tend to either break down into fine pieces and thus "dirty" the food product, i.e., the ice cream, or remain so hard and rough as to be undesirable to the palate in eating soft ice cream.
Heretofore it was also known in the prior art to incorporate various foods particulates into ice cream. Hassell, U.S. Pat. No. 1,901,394 granted Mar. 14, 1933, discloses the incorporation of popcorn and peanuts into ice cream. Anagnos, U.S. Pat. No. 1,968,732 granted Jul. 31, 1934, discloses incorporating candy or nuts into ice cream. Musher, U.S. Pat. No. 2,355,028 disclosed an oat product in ice cream. Forkner, U.S. Pat. No. 3,020,164 granted Feb. 6, 1962, discloses candy bits in ice cream. And Durst, et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,229 granted Mar. 18, 1975, incorporates a simulated nutmeat product into ice cream.
Such prior art particulates were generally hard and irregularly-shaped and retained their hard or tough quality when incorporated into the ice cream.
In the fields of edible ice cream and candy products cookie crumbs have been used extensively and may find increased use in the future (cookie crumbs are the result of further processing of finished, baked cookies; that is, the cookies are baked, then broken into pieces sized by various screens). The crumbs might be ideal for topping or as a filler. However, the present complete tiny cookie which can be handled by the processing equipment of the end producer of ice cream and candy products (keeping its integrity) is the perfect replacement for nuts, fruits, and chocolate chips.